Thursday, November 21, 2013

A few of my friends are pursuing eating aerial yam tubers with special cultivars of Air Potato that are edible, the concept being that the mother tuber remains in the ground and you eat ONLY the aerials. Each fall my Yams (Dioscorea spp. and cultivars) make FAR more aerials than I can plant or give away. Past efforts of boiling them were not good, even though I am a "garbage gut", so now I've tried this approach and the result was DELICIOUS! Despite the "binder" not doing a good of that (I had no eggs) my first ever experiment of making patties from aerial yam tubers was definitely a success! Yesterday I boiled them in salty water for about 20 minutes, poured off the brown water and let them drain and dry last night at room temp. Today I chopped them in a big pot with something that is either a donut maker or potato masher made of stainless steel until they were small chunks and crumbs, then poured in a "binder" I made in my Bullet blender from cooked Estrella chaya leaves, one yellow onion, a couple cloves of garlic, a dollop of sour cream, couple heaping tablespoons of soy flour to boost the protein, a little bit of olive oil and water. I mixed it all thoroughly, then put the hand made patties in olive oil on medium heat, covered at first, until nicely browned. I served the patty atop a bed of fresh arugula and Giant Red mustard leaves and two kinds of onion leaves, with ripe papaya and a slice of Meyer's Lemon on the side. EXCELLENT, plain or with ketchup. Since this was an experiment the batch is small, maybe enough to make 2-3 more patties. Next time I'll make a BIG batch and freeze the surplus. Had I had eggs I feel that the patty would not have fallen apart when I flipped it.